Hey folks! Mike here!

I was going to do a video for this, but it’s a lot faster for me to just write.

I’d like us to change the Hashtag (#LD48). It’s a common source of confusion for new participants (“I thought it was LD 31?”), which is about half of everyone participating in Ludum Dare events. And given all the other Ludum Dare numerics (72 hour jam, 48 hour compo, every past event), it’s helping nobody.

My proposed alternative is:

#LDJAM

When we started Ludum Dare 12 years ago, the term “Game Jam” hadn’t caught on. Instead, we took our inspirations from the Demoscene (i.e. “compo”). Nowadays though, Game Jams are what people call what we do. And even if you don’t know what a Game Jam is, you probably know the music term Jam/Jamming, or the sugary spread you put on your toast (arguably both are accurate descriptors of what we do). 😉

It’s unfortunately to change something we’ve been doing for 12 years (calling Ludum Dare LD48), but it’s a necessary step towards helping more people understand what we do.

This doesn’t solve the confusion between the Jam and Compo, but I think it’s still a better problem to have than having no idea what we do.

PLUS: ldj.am was available. Should make a good URL shortener. 😀

Share your thoughts in the comments.